FIVE YEARS AND STILL COUNTING

Five years into the war and untold number of GIs with their legs blown off from IEDs, we're finally "catching up." With all our industrial might it's taken this long to field equipment — MRAPs — that can protect our guys. I was riding in Hummers in Bosnia in which the grunts (in this case 4/12 Scout Snipers) were lining the floors with sandbags (which makes a small space for four guys to sleep surprisingly smaller). That was in 1996 or so.

Damn, but that's depressing. The government owes an apology and a helluva' lot more to a lot of troops. But no one's protesting that! That's 'cause they love our troops so much.

Above is a new EOD vehicle, the RL-33, built by US company BAE OMC.

All we had to do was ask the South Africans how to do it.